Do people have thoughts about the homeless man who has taken up residence on the Triangle chopping down all the budleia trees this evening?
He expressed lots of ideas about things, clearly keen to do his bit in exchange for sleeping in the middle of a public place, and a good idea to put a pond and other things there, but this unilateral action is, well... Do comment if you have thoughts.
The budleia do overgrow, hence I trimmed them recently and occasionally do when they get in the way of the pavement, but...
He's there now and always if you want to go and talk with him.
Replies
Hi folks,
As people will have seen, he seems to have gone, which is the main thing. People are now feeling able to sit around the Triangle again.
He was actually quite useful in rationalising some of those buddliea, and had good ideas for improving the space.
I heard of a possible meeting this Tuesday - I'm away this week but will be good to get things going.
Oh no! Lots of people must have seen him doing this? Various people have been doing gardening on the Triangle - in particular, Molly and Hilary and the PGRA community gardeners have been working on those very beds, so will be extremely annoyed. They planted some of those plants. We need a PGRA meeting!
Yes, a PGRA meeting would be very good.
I'll go back to Kev and Tony with offer to revive in some low-maintenance form.
This seems like a complex situation. This particular bed has been neglected for a long time, and the guy's actually right that it would be brilliant with a pond and a proper space there - the sort of thing we could apply to the council through their new 'small spaces revival' fund or whatever it's called. Fortunately it seems he's left one budleia, which is probably plenty. I was going to put some wooden borders around there at some point soon anyway, so it's good to think about reviving it, just more a question of what to do with/about this man in general.
Hopefully his action might inspire us into reconvening.
I'd love to do something with PGRA in some low-level form (highly aligned with idea of doing positive things in community but limited time). I hope the fact that some people have run it in the past isn't a blocker on other people doing something worthwhile now.
Local residents chopping up the felled buddleias on the Triangle on Wednesday evening. There was a lot to chop, but lots of people turned up to help! Thanks to Janice Williams for the photo.